A lot of folks are criticizing Johnny Depp for his choice of costume in the upcoming Lone Ranger flick in 2013. Some say it looks like a Halloween costume, others say he is disrespecting N..A.s. He says the he has Creek or Crow ancestry and a lot of folks disbelieved that. And he ‘did’ say in an article about the movie that he wanted to portray, Tonto as more than just a sidekick to the Lone Ranger. So i did a little research on the makeup and costume and found this stunning portrait of a Crow warrior taken from an authentic photograph. So what is so disrespectful here? By: Karen King

Note from me:

I found this on Facebook. So I tried to find the source of that photo. I haven’t yet, but I found others. I did find the above crow image for sale. It appears to be a painting that was probably inspired by the 1908 Curtis photos. I found a lot of more modern paintings that were clearly inspired by the photos.

Two Whistles, Crow Indian, Photo by Edward S Curtis around 1908.

This photo shows the white face paint and it looks like there might be black lines down the front. It is a bit hard to tell. He is wearing a hawk headdress made from the bird itself, not just the long feathers.

Medicine Crow, 1908 E.S. Curtis

Another very similar shot without the face paint. It is hard to tell if it is the same man or not. I am leaning towards that as the nose, lips and chin look the same. The head is tilted farther back in one than in the other.

Crow Shawman, 1908, E.S. Curtis

I left the spelling the same as the photo was labeled. This headdress is made from an eagle. So far, based on a VERY small sampling, the full bird headdress seems indicative of medicine men.

If there was any real complaint, it shouldn’t have been the appearance of his costume, which my be more accurate than not, but rather that it should have been that they are depicting the Crow Indians from Montana rather than any of the nations of the North American Southwest. Which, I think, would be more appropriate.

As a weird side note, I found some exaggerated art of the crow topknot they sometimes did. It looks strangely like Kia’s weirdly huge bun. If you watched Lexx, you know what I mean.